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Fringe 2005 Reviews (17)
The Night Shift
By Mark Murphy
BAC
Traverse 2
****
Haunting, dreamy, and punctuated with violent outbursts, The Night
Shift is a slightly confusing but ultimately thrilling story about
family secrets. We meet Alice (Catherine Dyson), a young woman who acts
out her dreams and plays out her childhood traumas, and her boyfriend
Gray (Jason Thorpe), then a second set of individuals - Helen and Andrew,
played by the same actors.
The double-casting is a bit confusing at first, as the different characters
don't have different physicalities, but once one twigs what's taking
place it begins to highlight how easy it is to see other people as individuals
out of our pasts.
Mark Murphy's script, which he has also directed, is enthralling, with
dialogue that shifts between poetic, heightened monologues and naturalistic
discussions. The final 'secret' is easy to guess by about halfway through
the play, but The Night Shift isn't really a mystery story as
much as it is an examination of human relationships, so this isn't something
that has a negative impact on the overall impression of the play.
The Night Shift will appeal to audiences with tastes that run
to the experimental, while not alienating those who prefer their drama
to have a substantial plot. The magic of the piece most definitely lies
in Murphy's articulate and wounding observations on the nature of love,
as well as his skill in directing Dyson and Thorpe's performances.
Rachel Lynn Brody
The Devil's Larder
By Jim Crace, adapted by Ben Harrison
Grid Iron (Scotland)
Traverse 4, Debenhams, Princes Street
*****
In London every Autumn, an event called Open House takes place, during
which members of the public are allowed to traipse through buildings
or areas that are normally strictly prohibited.
The Devil's Larder, based on a Jim Crace novella, is the Fringe
equivalent as the bowels (mark the word) of Debenhams on Princes Street
become the setting for a collection of food-influenced scenes that comprise
a darkly humorous view of life.
The joy of the experience is in the combination of a behind the scenes
look at an Edinburgh institution and often sensual or fatal views of
the effects of the culinary arts.
The audience meets on Edinburgh's main shopping thoroughfare for their
promenade and after a loving look at an unmarked tin can, collectively
heads into the marvellous Gladstone Memorial Library, endowed as the
19th Century closed. This peaceful gem is inexplicably hidden behind
the lingerie department and has great views towards the Castle. The
story related there by a hotel receptionist is anything but calm as
a resident dies courtesy of asparagus riddled with botulism.
The trek takes the audience through scenes in ladies clothing (indigenous
curry), homewares (strip fondue! and cannibalism), bedding (you can
guess) before landing with an elephant man in the rectal investigation
department and Beelzebub himself back in the library.
Grid Iron's company of six, directed by adapter Ben Harrison, create
a unique little world that seems far from a modern department store
and benefit from great work by award-winning Scottish harpist, Catriona
McKay.
The Devil's Larder is an ingenious site specific theatrical
evening that should not be missed for either its quirky humour or architectural
inquisitiveness.
Philip Fisher
Bacon
By Pip Utton and Jeremy Towler
Pip Utton Theatre Company and the Merlin Theatre
Pleasance Courtyard
*****
Pip Utton's performances are always - at least, those this reviewer
has seen - masterclasses in acting, and Bacon is no exception.
It takes as its subject that extravagant painter Francis Bacon who claimed
that he was as much at home in the gutter as at the Ritz. Having to
sit for just over an hour listening to one man talking directly to the
audience as a dead painter might seem something of a penance but Utton
makes it a thoroughly enjoyable experience, for he brings the man to
life in all his complexity and - for want of a better word - weirdness.
How does he do it? It's a combination of things: like Rory Bremner,
Utton has one of those malleable faces which can look very different
with the smallest of changes (in this case, Bacon's hairstyle) and he
is a master of body-language. It's not just a case of copying a few
typical gestures but everything changes: he becomes the "concentration
of camp", and we feel we are in the presence of Bacon himself.
This isn't a biographical piece: we do, it is true, hear about much
of Bacon's life, in particular his sex life, but Utton explores Bacon's
attitude to art and expounds his views on life. We come to know the
man. Indeed, I went into the show knowing some of his paintings (and
a few facts, such as Magraet Thatcher's dismissal of him as "that
dreadful man who paints those horrible pictures") and came out
feeling that I understood them and knew him. That's no mean achievement
for an actor.
Peter Lathan
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